Health department hosts Ending Epidemic Summit, World AIDS Day events
ALBANY, N.Y. (NEWS10) -- The New York State Department of Health AIDS Institute wrapped up its Ending the Epidemic Summit and World AIDS Day events at the Albany Capital Center. The two-day event brings together community advocates and state and city leaders to honor the history of HIV/AIDS and to collaborate on shared goals in ending the epidemic in New York State.
On display throughout the Capital Center was the AIDS Memorial Quilt, which was created to honor the stories and lives of those lost to the disease. There are roughly 50,000 panels dedicated to more than 110,000 individuals to ensure they're never forgotten.
"I'm very excited about our continued efforts to get PrEP, Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis, out to more people. We've achieved great success this past year -- in 2023 rather -- we had over 55,000 prescriptions for individuals who are eligible for PrEP coverage," NYS Department of Health AIDS Institute Dir. Joseph Kerwin said. "That is the highest number in the nation. I'm very excited about continuing that and making PrEP more available, especially to those populations that we know are not fully on board."
According to the health department, new diagnoses show a decrease of people living with diagnosed HIV by 30 percent since 2014.